When my kids were little, my Christmas decorating was what I would call “eclectic.” This was mostly because a lot of what I had in the way of decorations were hand-me-downs. So I made due with what I had.
One of my favorite things to decorate was the Christmas tree. There were the “special” ornaments that went up every year…baby’s first Christmas ornaments, our wedding ornament and then all the homemade ones from my children.
At some point, my Christmas decorating began to change. Suddenly I wanted things to match. I wanted my tree to have the same colors as my living room. So I packed away those special ornaments and began to color coordinate not only my tree but the other decorations.
About two years ago my daughter began to complain about this. She said our Christmas tree looked dull. She wasn’t even that interested in decorating it. Last year was the same thing. She didn’t have the same enthusiasm about decorating like she once did.
So this year when my husband brought up the tree to set it up, she frowned and made a comment about another year of having a “boring” tree. I didn’t pay much mind to her.
As my husband was digging through the boxes and got to the lights, he discovered ours didn’t work. So I volunteered to run to the store and pick up some new ones.
After I grabbed my lights, I walked down an aisle stocked with Christmas ornaments. One box stood out to me. It had what I would consider crazy colors—purple, green, orange and so on. I looked at the box and thought about how much my daughter would love it.
On a whim I decided to grab it. My 12-year-old son was with me and gave me one of those looks like, “Are you okay?” I smiled at him and said, “I’ll show her boring.”
When I got home, I hid the bag of new ornaments and went into the basement to dig out our special ornaments. My daughter was shocked when I showed her the new ones I had purchased. She absolutely loved them and was more than enthusiastic about decorating the tree. Then I brought out the special ornaments.
Well this turned out to be one of the best years of decorating our Christmas tree because as my daughter grabbed each one, I told her why it was special. It brought back a lot of memories and some laughter.
In my color coordinating world, I had lost sight of the fun and real meaning behind our Christmas decorating. Well not anymore. In fact, I will be shopping the after Christmas sales to find more fun ornaments so that next year’s tree will be even more colorful.
What about your decorating? Are you a color coordinator or do you go for the eclectic look?
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